Ginseng is an Oriental medical herb, the efficacy and availability of which have been known for a long time, and is typically distributed in the form of fresh ginseng, white ginseng or steamed red ginseng.
Steamed red ginseng is produced by steaming and drying ginseng several times, and black ginseng is produced by steaming and drying ginseng more times than steamed red ginseng.
Through the steaming and drying processes, saponin, crude saponin and ginsenoside Rh2 which have not been present in ginseng are produced. A large amount of saponin, crude saponin and ginsenoside Rh2 is contained in black ginseng which underwent more steaming and drying processes than steamed red ginseng.
Black ginseng refers to ginseng which is made black through the multiple steaming and drying processes. Since ginsenoside, a readily available active component of ginseng, did not leak through the several steaming and drying processes, the content of the active component is increased compared to that of either fresh ginseng or steamed red ginseng.
Recently, interest in such black ginseng is rapidly increasing since ginsenoside content thereof is significantly greater than that of steamed red ginseng that has been widely consumed as processed ginseng foods.
Korean Patent No. 10-0496418 (MANUFACTURING METHOD OF BLACK ROOTLETS OF GINSENG) discloses a method of producing black ginseng black ginseng fine roots includes: repeating, four times, the following processes of washing fine roots of ginseng with distilled water one to three times, first steaming the washed fine roots of the ginseng at 60 to 70° C. for 1.5 to 2 hours, and drying the fine roots of ginseng to a moisture content of 28%; repeating, four times, the following processes of steaming the fine roots of ginseng in a high-pressure steamer at a temperature of 135° C. for 2 to 3 hours and drying the steamed fine roots of ginseng in a hot-wind rotational dryer at 60 to 70° C. so as to have a moisture content of 25%; drying the resultant fine roots of ginseng in a bulk dryer so as to have a final moisture content of 14%; and removing impurities.
In addition, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2003-0005089 (METHOD FOR MENUFACTURING RED GINSENG) disclosed a method of producing black ginseng or black ginseng fine roots. This method includes washing fresh ginseng and repeating, seven times or more, the following processes of separating fine roots from main roots and drying the fine roots and main roots to a moisture content of 14% or less. Consequently, the fresh ginseng is converted into steamed red ginseng and then the steamed red ginseng is turned black while the major components inside saponin stay through these processes.
However, in the black ginseng or the black ginseng fine roots produced by the technology disclosed in the above-mentioned document, as for the contents of several kinds of ginsenoside in ginseng, only the contents of certain components were increased slightly from or similar to those of fresh ginseng or steamed red ginseng of the related art.
Nevertheless, it is real that the contents of active components were increases than those of fresh ginseng or steamed red ginseng of the related art. Therefore, black ginseng is gaining more popularity.
Therefore, at the point of time when the efficacies of black ginseng are being proven gradually, there is a need for research on novel black ginseng, the efficacies of which are significantly better than those of conventional black ginseng.